Shoe horn

This horn, is the largest Mindum shoe horn known. From the evidence of surviving examples, Robert Mindum was active from 1593 to 1613. Only one of the horns has a London provenance (58.38/1). In 1911, Mr Drane, wrote that he had acquired his examples in Bristol, Nottingham, Buxton, London and Malvern. The powder-horn (see 58.38/6) came from a Norwich collection. Joan Evans in 'Shoe-horns and a powder flask by Robert Mindum' The Burlington Magazine, November 1944, p 283-4, notes that 'the very name Mindum gives little help. It may be of foreign origin, but it does not appear in the Elizabethan lists of denizens' it may represent some English place-name such as Mindham in Sussex or Mendham in Suffolk. The fact that every known example gives or gave both the owner's and the maker's name suggests the possibility that Mindum was an amateur worker in horn who made them as gifts for his friends.' See also Sir John Evans, 'Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd series, VII (record of a meeting held on 25 January, 1877); Hazel Forsyth 'Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars, V&A, 1912.